Investigating Evans
by Phoenix Ruisse
Summary: In the post-Hogwarts world of the Marauders' era, Voldemort is gathering his forces and positioning his pawns in the Great War. Lily Evans is drawn into an investigation into the murder of a little known Death Eater accomplice, and somehow gets caught up in James Potter's entire world. For James, this investigation turns out to be the case of his career... and more.
1. The Dresden Files

Lily Evans sat on the floor of her office, surrounded on all sides by mounds of paperwork. She blew her fringe out of her eyes, scrunched up her face in concentration and muttered hurriedly under her breath, "Accio Dresden files". And promptly following that, a sheaf of moulting yellow papers, which Susan, Lily's PA, had clearly spilt tea on more than once, thunked her on the head and dropped to the floor with a loud splat. A rather loud knock on the door accompanied her sigh of exasperation.

"Come in" she called, rolling her eyes as one particular file of Dresden's attempted to wriggle out from under her and make a harried dash for the window. Shoving it into her bright green snakeskin handbag, she looked up expectantly as the door swung open. Instead of Susan's blonde head poking round, though, she was met by a long, thin face, upon which lay a nest of black hair which stuck out at all sides.

"Potter" Lily said sharply, standing quickly, and bolstering on her usual unimpressed expression. "To what pleasure do I owe this visit?"

The wizard named James Potter strolled casually into her office, and cocked an eyebrow. "I'm here to discuss the Dresden files."

Just as she was about to retort that they were under her safe remit, the lot of papers she had bundled into her handbag leaped over the lip of the bag's mouth, and bounced towards the open door. Lily bolted forward, and shut the door just as the first paper slipped in between the door jamb and the door frame.

"Harumph. I don't see what business you have with my files, Potter" Lily said crisply, yanking the offending paper from its trap and folding it under her arm, ignoring the object's squeaks of alarm.

James had settled himself on the edge of her desk, and at this, he tossed her a smug look.

"I have a file transfer request here. Documented by Moody himself. The files, and _all_ information pertaining to Dresden, are to be passed over to me. I'm taking over the case," James cast a lazy eye over her haphazard office. "While I can see you have been keeping such good care of them, nevertheless, the powers that be feel I'd do a better job at tying up the investigation"

Lily felt anger unfurl slowly in her throat. When she spoke, she betrayed her feelings somewhat with the hard tone.

"I'm afraid while Moody is an accomplished Auror, he has absolutely no authority over magical artefacts, and his file transfer request is just that, Potter – a request. Which can be refused".

"You're not getting the files" she added, fixing him with a resolute stare.

James sighed, got up, and within two long strides, stood over her. Lily tried to ignore the feeling of slight intimidation stealing over her rather petite 5 foot 1 inch body as she raised her head to meet James Potter's 6 foot 2 glare.

"This is no longer merely a misuse of magical artefact case, Evans. This is now a murder investigation".

Lily held his gaze, but inside she was rattled. Murder investigation?

"Dresden's colleague, Drake, was found dead this morning. His house had been ransacked and several high level artefacts had been taken." James rubbed a hand over his face, and sighed.

"I'm not particularly trying to annoy you here Lily, although I can see I'm succeeding. This has to be passed over to the Auror Department".

Lily didn't say anything. She pulled the file from under her arm and handed it to James, and quickly gathered the remaining papers strewn on the office floor.

James had turned to leave when she did speak.

"I knew Drake. He was helping me with my investigation. He was an informant." On any other occasion she would have been pleased to see the shock on James Potter's face, confirming her suspicions that he had been unaware of the extent of Drake's involvement in the Dresden situation.

James Potter looked round warily, and hurriedly cast the Muffliato charm. He strode forward and pulled down her window blinds. The office was thrown into shadow, and the mountains of paperwork spotted all over the floor and desk retreated to the corners of the room.

"Are you entirely sure about this Evans?"

Lily produced her wand and summoned her black diary. The thing was scuffed and stuffed with scraps of paper and memos, but she had no problem navigating to her most relevant Drake entry. Scribed, word for word, in Incorrigible Ink, was a confession on the behalf of Aldous Drake, admitting to illegal trade of magical artefacts. James counted Dresden's name as mentioned a total of 12 times in the piece.

"We had surveillance on Drake for weeks. Not once was there any indication that he was actively working on this with Dresden". James sat down once more on Lily's desk, and frowned.

"Perhaps you aren't quite as good as you thought", Lily smirked, taking her seat behind the desk, and stretching.

She summoned her diary back out of his hands once he attempted to move onto a fresher entry. "No, no, no". she wagged her finger at him. "This is classified information, Potter. All achieved through dogged hard work. Not something I intend to hand over easily".

James considered her, again leaning over her in an effort to maximise his own presence. She was a slip of a thing, really. She was curled up in her office chair so that she resembled a cat, languorous but small framed. Her red hair was trussed up in a bun that rivalled his own hair in its messy execution, and her makeup was smudged. Her cream silk blouse strained on her quite nicely, and her black peplum skirt was equally clingy. She had several expensive rings on and a beautiful emerald necklace which tracked down into her cleavage and set off her catlike green eyes. James cocked his head sideways, and broadened his shoulders.

"Well, Miss Evans, your attachment to this diary considered, you don't get a choice. All information pertaining to Dresden must be passed over". He raised his eyebrows, somehow aware this little nugget of information wouldn't satisfy her. He smiled ruefully when he was confirmed to be correct.

"Indeed. And it will be, Potter. I'm afraid information I have procured myself outside of the remit of the initial Dresden investigation will not fall under that umbrella".

Lily unfolded herself from the armchair and walked briskly to her door, opening it wide. "I'll send on the pertinent files shortly. Right now, I'm in dire need of a yoga break. Helps focus the mind, you know yourself."

And with that, James Potter found himself briskly expelled from Lily Evans' Ministry of Magic office.

* * *

James Potter paced back and forth in his own MoM office, brow furrowed. How on earth had Lily Evans managed to persuade Aldous Drake to disclose that kind of information? Did she have something on him? Had she blackmailed him? And why had she been meddling in the case to that extent anyway? As she'd pointed out to him earlier, her findings had fallen outside of the case brief. She wasn't _supposed_ to be digging for that level of intel. That she had, and that she had so casually revealed that little tidbit to him, indicated she had a lot more where that came from.

She had him. She knew he wouldn't be able to siphon that little black book of tricks out of her hands, he'd never get the clearance. The only way he would crack this case would be to involve Lily directly. Of course, that was much easier said than done.


	2. Womanly Wiles

Sirius Black tipped back his chair, leaning on the anterior two legs alone, and propped his own rather long legs atop James Potter's glass coffee table.

"Well, someone had a good day at work," Sirius smirked, glancing sidelong at his roommate. James was fastened to his own chair, poring through a stack of documents on file transfer regulations. The Ministry of Magic crest was emblemmed vociferously on each page.

James grunted. Remus flipped through the latest Witch Weekly magazine from the comfort of the squashy couch across from Sirius. "Something wrong, Prongs?" he asked innocently. Sirius grinned over at him as James grunted again.

James resolutely ignored the sniggers he heard coming from his friends, scrolling through the back of the regulations catalogue.

"Fuck it, anyway. I'm fucked"

James slammed the last of the MoM logs onto the table so hard that the glass trembled. He sighed, then scubbed his hand back over his hair.

"Sorry, James, is something the matter?" Sirius asked, baring his white teeth in a fulsome smile. Remus cocked an eyebrow. "Don't be ridiculous, Sirius. It's not like James has been storming around the apartment in a complete fluster for the last, oh – " Remus checked his watch surreptitiously, "90 minutes". He looked up expectantly, waiting for the Potter explosion.

"I'm fine" James flung himself onto the armchair next to the fireplace. "No problem, boys."

Sirius and Remus laughed richly as James grew even more sullen on the couch.

"Evans" Sirius chuckled again. "Only Evans gets you this much in a twist"

"No, actually, you'll find you're wrong, Padfoot" James snorted. "It's a case at work, that I just cannot solve unless I am given access to additional intel. Which I will not gain access to" he corrected himself.

"And how does Evans fit into this?" Remus winked at Sirius, who broke into another bout of laughter.

"She's the one with-holding the intel," James admitted. His two companions, their suspicions confirmed, punctured the momentary silence with laughter once again. James flicked his wand in annoyance, and visited 2 sharp stings across his comrades' backsides.

Sirius retaliated, flipping James' stack of MoM transfer rules across his forehead efficiently.

"Truce," James offered resentfully, avoiding the beaming smile Sirius sent his way. "No worries, mate. Think we got desensitised in school to the Evans moods, after all".

James scowled.

"This time it's fucking around with my investigation, which involves a known Death Eater. The only way is to involve her in it".

Remus cast a surprised glance at James. "She's up for that?"

"Haven't asked yet," James' hand jumped to his hair once more. "I assume not, to be honest."

"Nonsense mate! Sure, she isn't your biggest fan… but if she gives a shit enough about this case to have been doing all this extra digging in her spare time, then she's interested. You just need to play it the right way. Instead of you needing her, make it so that she needs you". Sirius dropped his chair to the floor and uncrossed his legs. "It's all about the delivery, mate".

James watched his friend root through his press, pull out a box of Wanderly Wizard Crunches, consider it disdainfully and put it right back. "Figured that out already? Maybe you should come work for us" James commented, unsurprised all the same.

"It's my brilliant mind" Sirius mumbled through a mouthful of Cauldron Cake.

James shuffled the papers in his case over towards Sirius. "Well focus that mind on this for a few while I have a shower and think up various schemes to involve Evans and her little black book in this mess. I need a fresh set of eyes on this shit – Merlin knows I can't see any worthwhile leads".

James apparated to his shower within seconds, and dunked himself under the spout of the gushing hot water with readiness, closing his eyes and going over the possible scenarios in his head. He briefly assessed the risks of nicking Lily's diary from her, but decided she probably had rigorous anti-theft charms on it, and anyway, he didn't particularly want to enrage her any further. He could approach Moody and ask him to enforce a blanket file retrieval on all miscellaneous intel but, despite Moody's proclivity for breaking rules, James knew that would get injuncted further up the chain of command. He could attempt to further the investigation without the use of her gathered data, but that would be quite difficult, considering he had absolutely no leads whatsoever.

James soaped up and rinsed, and chided himself for the direction his thoughts had begun to take. While seducing Evans was a decidedly appealing option, it would not be his first effort to attract her. What he had learned as a schoolboy was that Evans had little to no interest in him whatsoever. In fact, in her own words, he was a bullying toerag.

James groaned as his thoughts reverted back to that fateful day in fifth year. That was one of only two times that James had asked Lily out, but it was absolutely the most humiliating one. Perhaps, in hindsight, he could understand her anger when he had hexed Snape, but her very public refusal of his interest remained something he continued to feel mortified about for a long time after.

The second and final time had not been as public, but it had wounded him as much, if not more so than her initial rejection. It had been his final year at Hogwarts, and he had been made Head Boy to Lily's Head Girl. They has grown to become friends of sorts, even Lily would admit that. He had toned down his arrogance and had even stopped hexing people (people precluding Snape, of course). Of course, even then, Lily hadn't seen him romantically… or even sexually. In fact, he didn't think she was remotely attracted to him at all.

James, in an even worse mood now, walked straight past his buddies in the lounge, wet hair dripping all over the carpet, and locked himself away into his room for more than an hour. Sirius and Remus merely shook their heads and grinned. Lily Evans had a way of riling James Potter up, and the results were always entertaining.

* * *

Lily Evans was angry. No, Lily Evans was furious. No, Lily Evans was irate. It was just typical of Auror James Potter to waltz into her office and thieve her own case right out from under her. And right when she had been on the cusp of cracking it. If he hadn't gotten involved and stolen all her evidence, she'd have had Dresden and Drake locked in Azkaban in the next fortnight. _Had Drake not gone and gotten himself murdered, of course_ , she mused.

Apparating into her sitting room, she kicked off her heels, loosened her blouse and flicked her wand so that her bottle of Firewhiskey tipped itself over her glass goblet and filled it right to the brim. "Bloody James Potter" she bellowed, waving her hand and dimming the lights. The candles dotted along the bookshelves and glass coffee table sprung into being, flames dancing, just as her room-mate Shelley popped round her bedroom door.

"Ooh firewhiskey. Throw me a goblet, babe"

Lily snapped her fingers and a second gobletful materialised in Shelley's proffered hand. "And did I hear the name James Potter being thrown about? Tasty little piece he is" Shelley winked, flinging back her hair and settling in on the divan below Lily's feet.

Lily growled at her. "He is the bane of my life. He was the most annoying dick in school, and he's still an annoying dick at work"

Shelley fingered the stem of her goblet thoughtfully. "That's not quite how I remember final year" she reminded Lily, who chose instead to pull out her black book and rifle through it, as though looking for the answer to leap out at her.

"Mm, well, either way, he's making my working life hell. This case would have been big, Shell. And I mean big. But of course he's going to get all the glory now when it's me who should be getting the Minister's Award!" At this point, Lily's tone had descended to nothing more than a shrill whine.

"Firstly, Lily, you don't even know this case would be enough to get a Minister's Award. Realistically, it would have just gotten you a nice commission at Christmas and a special mention in the end of year summary. Second – "

Lily looked away pointedly. Shelley continued, tapping her finger against the glass table. "Second, Lil, James could well beat you on both of those grounds, without even considering this case. He's an Auror, and he's Potter."

Lily rolled her eyes.

"Thirdly, you were doing all that legwork outside of work hours anyway. Nothing has changed – unofficially"

Lily regarded her hesitantly.

"Shell, I could explain away the additional intel when I was officially consigned to the task, but to undertake it regardless of being taken off… that's dodge"

Shelley shrugged. "If it were me, I'd keep going. Then I'd seduce the fuck out of Potter and convince him to put me on the tag sheet for the list of operatives."

Lily's eyes narrowed. "Seduce Potter? Prostitute myself to get the thanks I deserve for already doing the work I already did? No chance"

Shelley tilted her head. "It's your only option if you want to reap the benefits, babe. You want in, you gotta use the talents Merlin gave you".


End file.
